North Hills leaders say statewide testing outage disrupted thousands of PSSA takers; district asks state for answers

Board member Mathis said the North Hills School District has formally asked the Pennsylvania Department of Education to explain a statewide outage of the DRC online testing platform that disrupted PSSA testing on April 21, and to outline how scores and accountability measures will be addressed.

Dr. Mannarino, who spoke to the board after Mathis’s opening remarks, said North Hills had prepared for a digital exam and tested its local servers in advance. "We knew our infrastructure was strong," he said, but when districts across the state logged on together students were repeatedly logged out and could not advance through questions. He said initial calls to the test vendor blamed local districts before the scope of the outage became clear.

Dr. Williams recounted the disruption at the middle school and elementary schools, saying students faced frozen pages, repeated forced logouts and nonfunctional toolbar features such as the highlighter. "Approximately 2,400 North Hills students in grades 3 through 8 were trying to complete a high-stakes test, and for 40 minutes of time the system repetitively failed," she told the board, adding that the failure caused confusion, tears and significant anxiety for students and staff.

Both administrators urged the state to acknowledge the outage publicly, explain what caused the failure, and provide clear guidance on how student data and accountability will be handled given the compromised testing conditions. The board’s request asks the department to outline steps to stabilize the system for the remainder of the testing window and to provide information district leaders can share with families and staff.

District leaders emphasized that North Hills staff and students were prepared and that local technology did not fail. "Our technology did not fail," Dr. Williams said, and she asked whether the state had conducted an equivalent statewide stress test before launching the platform. The administrators also warned that results produced under stressed, confusing test conditions may not reflect students’ true achievement.

The board did not take formal action on the request during the meeting; Mathis said the district has already communicated its concerns to the department and is seeking remedies that protect students from being penalized for the system failure. Next procedural steps were not specified at the meeting but the board indicated it expects a formal response from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.